of powerlessness which takes possession of us
on the completion of an irrevocable deed, aided,
in poor Laudadio's case, by the importunate
reproaches of his conscience. It was in vain
that he repeated again and again to himself
that he was only doing far better for his child
with her money than she could do for herself;
in vain that he argued that as her father he had
some right to act for her, and watch over her
interests. The genuine utterances of the still
small voice are less easily overborne and put
down than the dictates of the intellectual
powers. The old man might succeed in persuading
himself that the numbers to be drawn from
the lottery wheel on the morrow were revealed
to him by his waking and sleeping dreams;
but he could not for an instant bring his conscience
to absolve him for the deed he had done.
The great prize for which he had been hoping
for so many years, was now, as he told himself
again and again, as good as won; a greater prize,
indeed, than he had ever hoped for, for he had
never before had the power of risking so large a
sum at one time. Yet probably never in his life
had Laudadio Vanni passed a more miserable
hour than that which he spent in his midnight
pacing under the colonnade of the Uffizi.

At length, wearied in body as well as in mind,
he betook himself to the great "loggia" of the
piazza. Every one who remembers Florence,
remembers this magnificent structure by Orcagna,
its wonderful noble arches, and the assemblage
of masterpieces in marble and bronze collected
beneath its lofty roof. At the back of the building
a broad stone bench runs along the wall,
and on that Laudadio stretched the long length of
his gaunt and weary limbs to await the coming of
the dawn. Many a worse sleeping chamber might
be lighted on by a weary man than that masterpiece
of architecture, proportion, and beauty, all
open as it vast arches are to the mild breeze of
the Italian summer night. But no bed of down
could have brought sleep that night to the old
lottery gambler. The stake to be decided by the
events of the morrow was too tremendous a one
to him. For it will be readily understood that
now—strangely inconsistent creatures as we are
—the amount of money to be won was the least
important part of the interest that for Laudadio
hung on the dirty scrap of paper in his pocket.

At last, towards morning, he fell into an uneasy
doze, from which he was awakened soon after
dawn by the workmen coming to erect the scaffolding
for the ceremony of the drawing. The grand
"loggia" of Orcagna, in the principal square of
the city, is the spot chosen for this purpose, and
the carpenters and upholsterers were come to
make their preparations. Many a condemned
man has been waked from his last earthly sleep
by the noise of the erection of a scaffolding for
a more terrible, though scarcely less pernicious
purpose, and has met the coming day with more
apathy than Laudadio felt at these preparations
for his triumph or intolerable overthrow! How
to get through the next six or seven hours?
That was now the most immediate question.
Remain quiet, he could not. Besides, he was
too well known in Florence; and it would have
been too strange, perfectly well as his devotion to
the lottery was known to all the world, for him
to have been found there at that hour of the
morning. So he slunk away from the piazza,
and passing through the obscure streets which
lie at the back of the palazzo pubblico, reached the
large square in front of the church of Santa Croce.
The vast building was already open, and at a far
altar in the transept a few old men and women
were hearing, or rather looking at, a morning
mass. Here a seat, silence, and solitude, were to
be had; and Laudadio entered the church and
seated himself in a dark corner of the transept,
opposite to that in which mass was being said.
Here the deep silence of the place, and the fatigue
of his sleepless night, gave him the advantage of a
couple of hours of forgetfulness. It was nearly
eight when he awoke; and he thought he might
then venture to go and look at the preparations
in the square. He found all there in readiness.
There was the gaily decked raised platform, like a
box at a theatre, with its seat for the magistrates,
the lofty board prepared for the exhibition of
the winning numbers, and the music-desks for
the band; and above all, there was the wheel in
the front of the box, looking like a large barrel-
churn, only made of mahogany, and ornamented
with brass mountings. In Naples, there would
have been also a place for the priest, who, in
that country, always attend on these occasions
"to keep the devil from interfering with the
numbers." But in less religious Tuscany this
precaution is omitted. All was ready; but the
hours, as it seemed to Laudadio, would not move
on. He returned once again to Santa Croce,
and finding it impossible to sit still, occupied
himself with strolling about the immense church,
and endeavouring to meet with the important
numbers, that were so deeply engraved on his
brain, in the many inscriptions on the walls and
pavement of the building.

In the mean time, Laura had risen early to
begin the various work of her busy day. The
lamp which her father had left burning had
burned itself out. But the unlocked and unbolted
door, and the absence of the old man's hat
from its accustomed peg, showed that he had gone
out. There was nothing to surprise her much in
this. She knew that he was apt to be restless on
the morning when the lottery was about to be
drawn in Florence, on which occasions he was
always sure to play. She doubted not, that when
he had left them on the preceding evening, he
had gone to buy a ticket with the few pauls he
had in his pocket, and supposed that he had gone
for a morning stroll to walk off his restlessness.
Carlo was to be most part of the day at the
custom-house, receiving and passing the goods
from Paris, and she did not expect to see him
till the evening. So she quietly set to work to
arrange, inventory, and ticket a parcel of jewellery
that had come in the day before.